Exploited
The new semester at Starling University in New Jersey means a new intake of students, among them local boy Brian Timms, dropped off at the dormitory by his brother Jacob and assigned to the room he will be sharing with Jeremy, and apparently Jeremy’s girlfriend Lexi, keen to introduce him to the party scene and all the drunken shenanigans life without supervision can offer.
Given a flashcard with Wi-Fi access, orientation material and student software Brian instead accidentally inserts the drive of a previous student where he finds a wealth of hidden material, video captures of webcam sessions of “wrestlerstud99” entertaining a variety of clients of diverse desires, Brian becoming as obsessed with handsome host as one of his masked clients became with him, their interactions increasingly threatening and violent.
Directed by Jon Abrahams from a script by Carl Moellenberg and Anthony Del Negro, Exploited focuses its webcam on the tangled quartet of Brian (Jordan Ver Hoeve), Jeremy (Andrew Matthew Welch), Lexi (Makenzie Vega), her friend Janelle (Hannah Rose May), drug dealing brother Jacob (Will Peltz) and the mysterious “wrestlerstud99,” eventually identified as Caleb (Colin Bates).
A former student who may have transferred out a year before or may have been murdered, it is odd for a thriller built around online availability and digital information that Jeremy makes no attempt to track Caleb or ascertain what happened to him when the knowledge might confirm whether if he was – and perhaps, still is – the person behind what is now happening to him and his friends or another victim.
Shallow and self-obsessed pawns lining themselves up to be taken advantage of by parties unknown through manipulation, coercion and blackmail, instead they allow themselves to be led by hormones and high emotion, desire and jealousy overriding sense, reacting precipitantly to messages received without question even when it is obvious their chats have been hacked, never comparing experiences before jumping and certainly never going to the campus authorities or locking their doors.
That said, Exploited is on the whole well-acted by the ensemble who convey the confusion of their emotional and romantic situation, as compromised as their laptops and with their indiscretions on public display when they fail to obey their anonymous tormentor, and unlike many similar films it is not shy about equal opportunities in nudity, perhaps in hopes the surfeit of flesh might distract from the obvious intersection of all the involved parties.
Exploited is on digital download now
